Posts tagged ‘froebel stars’

A Froebel star (German: Fröbelstern) is a Christmas decoration made of paper, common in Germany. In English it does not have a commonly recognized name; it can be referred to as Advent star, Danish star, German star, Nordic star, Pennsylvanian star, Polish star, Swedish star, Christmas star, or Froebel star.It is also sometimes incorrectly called a Moravian star, but the Moravian star has at least 26 tips instead of the 16 tips of the Froebel star.

For some reason I went a little crazy with stars over the holidays. I made Waldorf Stars, fabric froebel stars (one dimensional) and these traditional wax dipped stars.

First I experimented with magazine pages, kite paper, newspapers and even maps from old books I use for crafts. I love how each star was different depending on the size of strips or the weight of the paper. You could string some up and make a festive garland or bunting. If you use thin paper (like newspaper or origami) you can double the width, then fold it in half to create thicker strips to work with.

The star pictured above was one of the smallest of the stars I made. I played with paper strips ranging from 1/4″ to 1″. I found the 1/2″ to 3/4″ size to be my favorite. The 1/4″ just frustrated the crap out of me! About halfway through I just smashed it and had to collect my thoughts. And have a bottle glass of wine.

After folding about a dozen of these I was pretty confident in my star making abilities. Traditionally Froebel stars were dipped in wax and sprinkled in glitter. Glitter! That’s something I don’t have a chance to play with very often. My six year old self wanted to come out so I went and bought a big block of wax and an assortment of glitter.

I cut up enough kite paper strips in multiple colors to create a couple dozen stars and went to work. Working in an assembly line fashion I folded them all, then dipped and glittered (my favorite step). Be sure to have your liquor of choice on hand when folding. It makes the process even more enjoyable.

It was so fun playing with all of the color combinations but I think the white star with iridescent glitter was actually my favorite! Or the hot pink one.

I made a couple dozen fashioned into ornaments to give to myco-workers. The ornament hanger was very useful as I could hold it when I dipped them in wax.

If I make these again this December, and I have a feeling I will, I will be sure to take pictures of the process so I can provide some direction. There is plenty of help out there in internet land on the folding, but not so much on the wax dipping process.